Games & Gaming

In the last five years, the video games industry has gone through a radical reshaping. Next generation consoles were focusing on providing hardcore gamers with photo-realistic graphics and greater processing power. Producing games with mass-market appeal did not make business sense as there was no audience: games were effectively a niche, hobbyist pursuit (albeit a profitable one, at the top end).

Now that next-gen is current-gen, games publishers and developers are being transformed into entertainment service providers for the mainstream. The rise of online gaming has enabled independent developers to prosper whilst allowing innovative business models to emerge: micro-payments, subscription-based gaming and digital distribution all point to an incredibly vibrant and durable industry.

We have a very impressive pedigree of working with some of the the leading names in the games industry. We assist developers and publishers on licensing, development and distribution matters.

Our work also includes advising on M&A deals, venture and development capital from associates or business angels, follow-on funding rounds, institutional venture capital deals and buyouts and buy-ins.

Key areas of our video games expertise include:

Acquisitions and disposals of games studios, plus associated fundraising and related corporate financing issues
Protection and exploitation of intellectual property rights
Licensing of tools, technology and content needed to produce games
Open source issues

Development agreements
Distribution agreements
Web-based gaming issues involving hosting and maintenance agreements
End user licence agreements
Data protection and privacy regulation

Our recent experience includes:

Acquisitions for glu mobile, a leading provider of mobile games and content
Advising a venture capital fund on its investment in Player X, a mobile media company specialising in game content through various platforms
Advising Inspired Gaming on a variety of deals to distribute content via terminals in pubs and leisure complexes

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